


To Success

by BeBunny



Series: All bets are off [5]
Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Hugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 21:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeBunny/pseuds/BeBunny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets bored and is roped in to helping Tony test new tech.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Success

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunsetmog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmog/gifts).



> Fluffy drabblything for Sunsetmog, who has finally finished The Holiday, which is awesome and has taken so much work. I offered to write something to celebrate and she asked for hugs, therefore, Tony hugs! 
> 
> Normal porny service shall be resumed shortly I dare say :D

It seems like the whole tower is empty. The journey up from the lobby had been eerily quiet, in fact, Steve would go so far as to say people were trying to stay out of everyone else’s way. It was disconcerting to say the least. 

Upstairs isn't much better. No sign of Natasha or Bruce, Clint waves at him half heartedly from down the hall but Steve can see he has his head cocked to one side, phone balanced in the hollow of his shoulder. Whatever he's discussing looks intense. Steve waves back and smiles, but Clint has already turned away, arguing furiously with whoever is at the other end of the call. 

He pulls out a chair from the dining table and sits down heavily. Yesterday’s newspaper sits discarded in the centre of the table and he flicks through it idly, nothing really grabbing his attention. He catches up on sports results, sneers at a hideously biased report on city zoning by a journalist whose name he doesn’t recognise and gets the ‘dish’ on all the hottest ‘celeb’ gossip. It’s hardly stimulating stuff. 

He half considers cooking an elaborate meal of some kind, just to keep himself occupied. The thought of collapsing on the sofa with a laptop and only the internet for company doesn’t seem too attractive right now either, although there’s been plenty of times that it’s been his only saving grace since moving into the tower. 

Clint hovers in the doorway briefly, still on the phone, but quieter now. He scowls at in response to the caller. Steve can just about hear a tirade of something at the other end. He can’t make out what’s being said but there’s an awful lot of it. He makes a ‘condolences’ face when Clint sits down in a chair opposite at the table. 

When Clint flails at him he passes over a pen and a stack of post-its, on which Clint immediately scribbles in his messy, scratchy handwriting: 

_Bored?_

Steve nods and shrugs, sitting back in his chair and sighing for effect. Clint tears off the top sheet and writes on the next one:

_Sorry, wish I could help, will prob be a while. :(_

He holds it up for Steve with a little waggle of his eyebrows, which makes him blush, he has no doubt how Clint would offer to amuse him. He shakes his head, _Not your fault._

Clint grins and scribbles on the pad again, this time sticking the post-it to his forehead for Steve to read as he weighs in on the issue in discussion with the caller and writes down a string of numbers as they dictate, Steve hears enough to know it’s something to do with online billing. 

_There’s 2 cream puffs in fridge, take one down to Tony._

Now there’s something he can do! He throws a thumbs up to Clint, clapping him on the shoulder as he passes, squeezing a little for emphasis and swipes two pastries from the fridge. They’re fresh, Bruce probably picked them up on his morning walk. The other four are missing and Steve hopes fervently that Clint didn’t eat them all. 

The last thing he sees as JARVIS closes the elevator doors for him is Clint banging his head repeatedly on the dining table. 

~*~

Tony is in the workshop, hunched over something delicate. He doesn’t look up when Steve enters but that’s nothing unusual. It looks like Tony’s in the same clothes he’s been in for a few days and Steve wonders if he’s been sleeping in them, down here on his little cot. 

“Tony?” He says, hoping he doesn’t startle. 

He’s waved in, and he picks his way over several sheets of discarded notes, an old carton of Chinese and a haphazard pile of what look like circuit boards. He places the box of pastries a little way away from where Tony is working and looks at the project critically. 

There’s no hope of fathoming exactly what Tony is working on, but he knows it’s been in motion for a long time. It’s the same set up Tony was working on last week and there have been mentions of a few prototype tests in the mean time. 

“It’s a shield.” Tony says. 

“Sorry?”

“This, all of this, it’s a shield.” 

Steve peers at the mess of wires and glowing cylinders. “This is supposed to stop what exactly?”

Tony rolls his eyes, but points the delicate screwdriver at a section of wiring that doesn’t look any different to any other section of wiring that Steve has ever seen on this, or any other electronic device. 

“The energy signature of certain repulse type weapons can be re-modified via the frequency matrix.” Tony says. “You’re here at exactly the right time actually.” 

“I am?” 

When Tony looks his way Steve gets a sense of just how wired Tony is. His eyes are deeply puffed, red rimmed and darkening around the edges. His hair is sticking up every which way and he looks like he hasn’t shaved in days. 

“You are!” Tony says, waving a triumphant hand. “Who better? Well, me, but I can’t do everything, here, hold this.”

He lifts a small panel into the device, closing the casing with a soft click. Steve reaches out gingerly to hold the handle, which looks a little like a knuckle duster. 

“What am I supposed..?”

“Nothing, just let me shoot you.” Tony answers, he’s digging around on the desk for something, chucking expensive looking electronic components and waving holographic schematics out of his way. 

“Shoot me?” 

“Yeah, don’t worry, there’s no chance it hasn’t worked this time.” 

Tony picks up a small repulsor pistol, and scowls at it. He reaches over and flicks a switch on the device Steve is holding and points the pistol right at it. 

“Wait! What!? Hold on a second!” Steve cries, three pitches too high, “What if this _doesn’t_ work?”

Tony sighs dramatically and shows Steve the side of the pistol, it’s a stun gun model, like the ones SHIELD had field tested for the police. “The worst it’ll do is make your arm numb for an hour.” 

Steve swallows hard and holds the device out at arms length. It hums softly under his touch and the vibrating of the unit makes his fingers twitch. 

“OK, JARVIS, record all corresponding data to project file, testing at..” He peers at the pistol, “Oh, level one since Captain America has his pants in a twist.” 

“I have not got my..” 

Tony shoots the pistol and Steve feels the shock up his arm. The unit hums deeper and there’s a light blue shimmer around his arm where the pistol fire made contact. He flexes his fingers experimentally but there’s no numbness, no pins and needles. 

Tony is looking at him like a lab rat, which he supposes in this case, he is. 

“Well?” Tony says. 

“Fine, good actually. Not even a tingle.” 

He’s not prepared for the yell of triumph Tony lets loose. He jumps to his feet in surprise and is tackled immediately by an exuberant Tony. Awkwardly he lets his arms relax and he pats Tony gently on the back where he’s wrapped himself around his chest. They stay like that for a few moments, Tony pressed against him. He can almost feel how exhausted Tony is, like he's fighting to stay upright. 

“Weeks!” Tony mumbles into his shoulder. “Weeks and weeks and it finally, finally works.” 

“You thought I was going to end up with temporary paralysis didn’t you.” Steve says, rubbing Tony's back.

“Worse, I thought I was going to have to give up and market it as some kind of sex toy.” Tony replies, laughing into Steve’s shirt.

Steve remembers the tingling sensation the unit had emitted when he picked it up and knows he’s blushing, but when Tony lets him go and looks at him with such _triumph_ he can’t bring himself to care. “Congratulations.” He says, and means it. 

Tony blinks and glances around the workshop. “We should celebrate, champagne or something, maybe I have something around here..”

“How about a cream puff?” Steve says, and passes over the box. 

Tony takes one and turns it around in his fingers, looking for the least messy approach. 

“To success!” Steve continues, and holds out his pastry. They bump them together with as much reverence as if they were crystal flutes, neither of them managing to keep a straight face when they both lose half the filling over fingers and down shirts a moment later.


End file.
